God Bless America
Written and Directed
By: Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Joel
Murray and Tara Lynn Barr
Director of Photography: Bradley Stonesifer, Editors: David
Hopper and Jason Stewart, Production Designer: Natalie Sanfilippo, Original
Music: Matt Kollar
The
success of Bobcat Goldthwait has rested on one essential fixture in his comedy:
as much as you might find him offensive and vile, he is a “truth teller,” as
the kids like to say. His comedy and his films might be over-the-top fantasies
that ignore real world consequences, but they are fantasies that we are all
supposed to hold deep within our repressed hearts. Consider that during the
first five minutes of God Bless America,
his latest and most direct polemic rant against American culture, the
protagonist has a dream where he murders a loud, constantly crying, and ugly
baby. Goldthwait assumes that all of us secretly want to murder that baby as
well, along with many other dumb, awful Americans that populate our culture.
Goldthwait
has some truth in God Bless America,
but it’s been diluted and packaged in such an odd package that never seems to
congeal. There’s promise to his work, the same way Shakes the Clown begins as a seriously dark look into comedy and
alcoholism, but he gives up on making a bolder statement for making an easy and
not particularly clever one. Add to that the violent fantasies God Bless America indulges, and Goldthwait’s
nihilism isn’t just lacking in profundity, it’s making those he holds upright
seem just as misguided.
Which
is part of the point, I guess. The film follows Joel Murray as Frank, a hapless
guy who has reached the end of his rope. He’s fired from his job, his daughter
can’t stand him, and he is constantly barraged by the trash that is American
culture (Goldthwait’s best statement is by not over-exaggerating the parodies
of shows like The Real Housewives and
American Idol—he presents them as
they are, which makes them all the more disturbing). He puts a gun to his
mouth, ready to end it all, when he decides that it would instead be better to
kill a teenager that screamed at her parents for not getting her an Escalade
for her 16th birthday.
Along
with some coddling by young, violent-crazy teenager Roxy (Tara Lynn Barr) ready
to destroy everything in her path, Frank begins a path across America,
murdering the worst of the worst: Republican talk show hosts, people who
double-park without a care, extremist protesters at funerals, and people who
talk at movies. These are people that deserve to die, explains Frank (as a
voice piece for Goldthwait, which is a lot of the movie).
Occasionally,
God Bless America seems to question
the actions of its heroes (Roxy wants to murder those who want to high-five, as
well as Diablo Cody for making Juno),
but the problem less with questioning the intention is that Goldthwait never
grounds this in a compelling narrative. The film is more indebted to the road
comedy than Bonnie and Clyde, but
neither Frank nor Roxy feel like fully functioned as much as functional for
these moments of violent extravaganza. Goldthwait’s point is that if the sane
do-gooders of the world treated the insane as they treat each other, then we’d
have a blood bath on our hands. It’s an interesting question, but because
Goldthwait is less interested in exploring this question (Taxi Driver did it 40 years ago anyways) than just exploring his
own dark fun because he can. I just wish I didn’t have to go with him.
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